"Why then I thank thee, Nature, / That when you made this frame of such frail stuff, / So sensible of harm, so ill array'd / To combat sharp Misfortune, yet you cas'd / My Heart in temper'd steel, and made it proof / Against the soft compunctious stroke of Pity, / Bidding it laugh at all that Fat...

"But know to thy confusion, not the Winds, / That sweep the Scythian desart, are more deaf, / Than are thy fancied Deities; nor Rocks, / That shake those Winds from off their icy sides, / More hard, or more unfeeling than my heart."

"Your constant endeavours have been to inculcate the best principles into youthful minds, the only probable means of mending mankind; for the foundation of most of our virtues, or our vices, are laid in that season of life when we are most susceptible of impression, and when our minds, as on a sh...